


i can't help you with that

by abrawmclaren



Category: Carol (2015), The Price of Salt - Patricia Highsmith
Genre: Canon Lesbian Relationship, Lesbian Character, M/M, Multi, Original Female Character(s) - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-08
Updated: 2018-05-22
Packaged: 2019-05-04 02:21:50
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 5
Words: 5,164
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14582811
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/abrawmclaren/pseuds/abrawmclaren
Summary: Abby Gerhard is a woman who protects what she loves. Carol, and over time Therese, are shielded from the brutish abrasiveness of Harge Aird; the only man Abby has ever brought herself to hate. She does so quietly out of respect for Rindy, who has become a gregarious, brilliant young woman - but the white-hot anger, and some pity, remain.But in the Fall of 1962, sandwiched in between the seemingly never-ending Vietnam War and whispers of social reform, a tragic accident forces skeletons out of the closet and perspectives to shift.





	1. against my grain

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Abby's conscience begins to beg for a higher regard. Urgent news upsets their fractured tribe.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I love what a badass Abby is in _Carol_. Ready to do what must be done, even if it's uncomfortable; and to hold Carol to account, even though they've been best friends since they were children. 
> 
> Therese is sort of a soft butch in this? I don't know. It's the 60s. People pushed the envelope. 
> 
> I want this to be more of a story told from Abby's perspective, but POV will change between Abby, Therese, and Carol.

  
**Christmas 1952 - The Gerhard residence**

**  
**

  
Of all the louts Abby knows - and there are many - the last one she wanted to see on her doorstep at two o'clock in the morning was Harge Aird. There he was, in the flesh; perhaps a handsome man, were she inclined toward such notions about the male sex, but he positively reeked of whiskey. His fists are balled at his sides, his left pant leg trembling. There weren't enough cigarettes in the world to calm these nerves, but Abby swallows the fear settling in her chest. She flips through memories of her long-standing friendship with Carol, landing on a bruised rib and the relinquishment of her couch for a week while they sorted it out early on in their marriage. She had promised her best friend then, and would honor it now, that she would never let Harge hurt her again. Injunctions are far more damaging than bruises; physical wounds heal. A sickness of the soul will not.

  


  
"I love her" he rasps, emotion clawing at his throat and forcing his eyes to open wider in spite of the bitter cold. Abby's face, she knows, betrays none of the anger causing her pulse to quicken. The utter foolishness of it is nearly laughter-inducing, but she bites back the venomous remark she has waiting on her tongue.

  


  
"I can't help you with that." She shuts the door; he lets her, this time.

  


  
When she turns the deadbolt, the first thing she does is light up. The second thing, and possibly the only thing she will regret as long as she lives, is sitting on the stairs in front of the door to watch the top of Harge's hat eventually bob out of sight. Perhaps she should have told him why what he feels for Carol isn't love; perhaps she should have explained how that isn't possible, since you can't force yourself to love something volatile, something against your nature.

  


  
The words die with the surety of her still-intact youth. As the months fade to years - ten of them since that evening at her front door - Abby mourns an opportunity to have brought her struggle and Carol's struggle, and now Therese's struggle - to the forefront. Harge would have never understood, but it would have been worth it enough to try.

  


  
****

* * *

**  
**

  
**New York, Lower West Side - 1962: The Aird/Belivet residence**

****

  


  
Carol works far more than Therese does; at least, her working hours take place during normal times, and they do not require the fevered rush of a routine for which to prepare. Since cutting her hair, Therese requires far less time to get ready in the morning - or the afternoon, or the late evenings - whenever she is called upon to fly out of the door, camera secured in its bag and thrown over her shoulder, off to the next great story. She's followed so many over the last decade, each more fantastic and high-profile than the last. The quality of the liquor and the thread count of their sheets stand as testaments to their mutual accomplishment, but Therese remembers the blue-tinged turkey at Frankenberg's and can't bring herself to be too proud. She remembers where she came from daily, and daily she moves about her apartment - where she has straddled peace and conflict, love and pain - as if she doesn't live there, and must be careful with her own things. _Their_ things.

  


  
It's a rare day off, and she hasn't been able to do much more than thumb through some photographs recently commissioned for a book about crime scenes. Faces whose names and even genders blur together as she studies them, each wearing similar affects of despair; their gritty, sometimes dirty lines deep set in their cheeks, some of which are hollow, tears staining clear lines down into the frayed collars of their shirts.

  


  
Therese doesn't know much about suffering, save for the brief time she was without Carol. Then again, she cannot seem to recall anymore a time in her life before her partner. She certainly knows that the life she has chosen is extraordinary in the purest sense of the word; that there could be consequences for women like them. Rindy was already one such casualty, although her relationship with her mother hadn't suffered. Having become a kind, compassionate young lady, Rindy recognized that there are some things which defy explanation. Her mother's happiness was something she therefore didn't question, regardless of from whom it came. Even so, the strained family dinners and holiday disdain proved to Therese that this was in many ways her fault - and the way Carol would squeeze her knee under the table reassured her that this is what she had signed up for, and that they would shoulder that cross together.

  


  
The phone rings, and the photographs flutter to the hardwood floor. Combing her slender fingers through her now-pixie cut hair, she takes the phone just as gingerly as she does anything else that's theirs. Even Carol's skin is a breakable thing under her hand, but she has just now learned to allow herself the audacity of intimacy. The sleek black rotary phone, on the other hand, is another story.

  


  
"Aird residence."

  


  
Anna-Maria Aird's clipped, vaguely German diction greets Therese's query. "Is Carol there?"

  


  
"No, she's at work. May I take a message?" Pencil poised over a scrap piece of paper. The second wife of Harge Aird is a known battleaxe, but her voice is a node above strain.

  


  
"It's about Harge. Something has happened."

  



	2. liberty

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In the wake of Harge's death, Abby provides clarity.

  
**Cathedral of St. John the Divine, New York - October 1962**  


  
She's always loathed lilies. The scent is frustratingly cloying, but they look nice enough and so they've somehow weaseled their way into the pantheon of acceptable flowers one utilizes for a funeral. Harge was never the delicate, gentle type; as evidenced by his thick-necked relatives, he was quite the barbarian. Carol's suave Jackie-O suit - a black Chanel suit, 'the widow's slit' flirting with a dangerous height, paired with a tapered blazer that victoriously hugged every curve the woman possessed. She was glamorous, elegant, and her presence caused a visible wave through the church as hands shot up to cover mouths, amazed that she had the nerve. But Carol wasn't here to bring attention to herself or to the marriage that had gone down in a blaze of scandal. 

  


  
Abby sat one row behind the last of the family, Carol next to her. Rindy sat with her cousins in the front row, occasionally stealing glances over her shoulder, wild teary eyes pleading for her mother to come join her. A thought suddenly occurs to Abby.

  


  
"Therese?" She whispers. Carol shakes her head. Her hair is longer, the curl on her right side having turned into a fantastic cascade of blonde - with only a few strands of rebellious silver - falling around her right eye. She moves it to regard her best friend, chuckling.

  


  
"And throw her to the wolves? I think not. I won't see any of these people after today, anyway."

  


  
Abby silently commends her for making a prudent decision. In front of them, Rindy has abandoned her attempt at bringing Carol forward. The girl is smart enough to know that now is not the time; but it aches anyway.

  


  
Harge had become a legend in his profession, and his memorial service was fantastically well-attended. He had died when his Chevrolet fell into the Hudson. He'd been drunk according to the police report, a bottle of scotch broken over his head serving as evidence of that condition. Abby'd made a concerted effort not to disrespect the dead by recognizing the poetic justice of that aloud.

  


  
Not surprisingly, Carol had mourned her former husband. They had lunch afterward, a nameless cafe with strong coffee and acceptable baguette. She watched butter melt into every pore of the french bread before making eye contact with Abby.

  


  
"Rindy doesn't understand" she purred, though her mascara still showed evidence of a harried attempt at catching a few tears. "Harge was like a safe no one knew the combination for. Even his 'Sunshine' couldn't break through that exterior."

  


  
"He was her father. She didn't need to understand. Maybe someday, you and Therese -"

  


  
"Can what?"

  


  
"Can give her what Harge never could."

  


  
Harge hadn't been able to give much to anyone, save for his coworkers and the company in which he found most of his identity. What sliver remained could rightly be said to belong to Rindy, although even that was a tenuous thing. Rindy was, first and foremost, Carol's great love - aside, of course, from Therese, which unceremoniously lumped them together and made Harge quite scarce for the last decade. Holidays, birthdays, and summer vacations were the only times Rindy ever spent a formidable amount of time with her father; and even then, it was likely that she knew exactly what kinds of vices he preferred. The name 'Therese' was banned from use in his home, his new wife determined to put the man back together again after his first wife left him for 'the shop girl' - a perpetual nickname, now dead along with its progenitor.

  


  
"We already do, darling" Carol cooed, and slid her hand to cover Abby's, who smiled back at her. "I feel free for the first time since I don't know when. Maybe when we were children."

  


  
Liberation is an interesting way to put it. Women are becoming pioneers, especially working women like Therese and Carol; they're giving Rindy something to aspire to, but beyond that - the underbelly of their lives, the part that still can't turn its face to the sun and which must be hidden to protect their newfound freedom, really isn't freedom at all. The shackles are transferred from one hand to another - from Harge to society at large, although in their hands the reins rested with ample slack for them to truly move on with their lives.

  


  
"He came looking for you once, when you went to Waterloo. He said that he loved you. It was pitiful."

  


  
"Harge knew where I was during our entire marriage." There's a glint in Carol's eyes, the same one she uses to be condescending but still immaculately polite. Abby knows what it means.

  


  
"I used to tell myself that I didn't know why he clung to you the way he did, especially in the end. That he was still a boy, and believed that he was entitled to whatever toy struck his fancy. But you weren't some toy he coveted - you were everything, Carol. Status, something to point to and say that he'd made it. He loved what you represented. He was desperate to maintain the illusion."

  


  
Carol takes a sip of coffee and a thoughtful drag of her cigarette. "And? What did you tell the venerable late Mr. Arge that evening?"

  


  
Abby doesn't hesitate. "Nothing. There was nothing more to say."

  


  
She hails a cab, after three martinis and traded glances over the rims of glasses she needs to make out the lines webbing out from the corners of Carol's eyes, or the way her face is fuller after a decade of domestic bliss. She is beautiful - but no more free than she was in Waterloo.

  


  
Abby puts a call through to her when she gets home - to let her know she made it safely, she tells herself. The busy signal greets her in lieu of Therese's inquisitive voice, or Carol's more confident alto. She takes this as a sign that she must think harder before reattempting to discuss the events of the week with her best friend, and pours another, stiffer drink.

  



	3. tell me more

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As Rindy's godmother, Abby is obligated to guide her in the way that she should go. When it comes to grieving for the death of her father, she's torn - but attempts to explain the relationship between Carol and Therese while not disparaging Carol's former husband. She finds that this is a herculean task.

  
Rindy's is a keen intelligence; she hadn't required a somber sit-down conversation about the nature of her mother's relationship with Therese. Growing up in New Jersey, and then moving to New York after her parents' divorce, she was exposed to many people who lived what her grandparents smugly called 'alternative lifestyles'. These ways of living were not inherently different to her; they just were, like the color of your hair.

  


  
When Rindy calls Abby in the late afternoon two weeks after her father's funeral, then, the woman isn't surprised until she explains what she was calling about.

  


  
"Did he know? I mean, all of it?"

  


  
Abby stifles a laugh. "Oh, darling. Come over for a cigarette and I'll tell you."

  


  
It's an all-day affair, since Abby still lives in Jersey. But Rindy does show up as the afternoon is just barely considering turning into eventide, which is probably the ideal time to have this conversation. For some reason, the thought of the sun going down as Abby tells her goddaughter about what had happened between them - between all of them, when Therese came along - was symbolic.

  


  
She brandishes a cigarette, lighting it for Rindy. "I don't know what kind of godmother I am, encouraging questionable habits in young impressionable girls."

  


  
"Mother seems to think you're completely blameless no matter what. I doubt she'd mind." Abby lets herself laugh this time, showing the girl into her living room.

  


  
"Well, just make sure you take some mint from the stoop on your way out. I'll catch hell if she suspects you came here to smoke and wax inquisitive about your father." Rindy smiles broadly, a straight row of white teeth greeting Abby. "I will. And this isn't just about my father; I - I want to know everything."

  


  
"Surely you have one particular burning question in mind."

  


  
The young woman doesn't even think about what she says next. "Were you and my mother together like that?"

  


  
Abby sits back, her elbow over the opposite arm while taking a thoughtful drag of her cigarette. "Yes. We were teenagers, not much older than you. We loved each other - always have - but that was destined to be a strong friendship and not a romantic partnership. Not all relationships are created equal." Rindy nods.

  


  
"Did Dad know?"

  


  
Abby closes her eyes. "Oh, yes." She tries to iron the disdain out of her voice and fails. "He hated that I'd had something he never would. He - didn't understand your mother, Rindy. Not many do anyway, but when it came to this one facet of her life, he was completely lost. It's not that he was a bad person; he was a flawed man with more foibles than graces, but he loved you."

  


  
"Did he love my mother?"

  


  
This was not an easy question to answer. The girl was bright, but she was too young to understand the nuances of society; and how her father had been a slave to them. "He wanted people to know that she was his wife. That his parents - well. That he came from a good family, had the perfect life. It didn't have a whole lot to do with love." She takes another drag while Rindy absorbs this information. "And Therese?"

  


  
"Oh, there is no doubt in my mind that your mother loves Therese very much indeed."

  


  
The girl seemed satisfied for the moment, looking at Abby and offering a weak smile. "Do you like Therese?"

  


  
That wasn't a question Abby had prepared herself to answer. In many ways, Therese was the culmination of a dream Abby had always held for Carol; that she would eventually find happiness in this mixed up world, and that she would leave Harge. She realizes she's never admitted to either. To wish happiness for Carol also meant taking a figurative back seat in their own relationship - for as long as she could remember, it was Carol and Abby against the world. Adding Therese to that fold had been like finding the missing piece of a puzzle, but one that could have rendered the picture just as lovely were it not there. She feels badly for thinking this, knowing how the 'shop girl' had swept Carol off her feet and taught her to love - others and herself - but she can't lie to Rindy, and she can't be entirely honest either.

  


  
"Early on, when you were just a small child, I had to bring Therese back to New York. She and your mother had made it all the way to -"

  


  
"Waterloo" Rindy says with no small amount of sadness. "I know."

  


  
Abby snuffs out her cigarette, leaning forward. "She had asked me if I hated her, and how could I? She made your mother indescribably happy. I was concerned about her age, but over time that concern has dwindled to next to nothing. I guess my point is this: yes, your father knew about Therese. He might have even wanted to love your mother at one point, but the bitch of it all is that he was going against his grain just as much as your mother was. They couldn't be a whole person together, so your mother found someone with whom she could be. That person is Therese, and that person happens to be a woman."

  


  
Rindy's next question hung in the air, hot and humid and begging. "Are you jealous of her?"

  


  
This question was possibly the easiest of them all. Sighing, Abby lights another cigarette and offers one to Rindy, who tentatively takes another. She lights her goddaughter's first, then her own. When she sits back against the couch again, it feels impossibly hard and uncomfortable all of a sudden.

  


  
"Rindy, listen to me: when you love someone, there will always be an imprint on your heart - something to show that you are always theirs. The friendship I have with your mother -" Abby runs her hand up the length of her throat, suddenly struggling against an emotion she has not allowed herself to experience since long before Harge died "is total. Unconditional. There is nothing Carol could do or say that would make me love her less; and we had our day in the sun. We learned who we are from each other, and that is a gift. A blessing. Now she gets to have her happiness with Therese, and yes - I wished in the beginning that it could have been me. This is human nature, Rindy, it has nothing to do with Therese as a person. I will always love your mother, and I will always love you. Therese is now part of my life because she loves someone for whom I would do anything; and how could I be jealous?"

  


  
_These are the conversations that turn girls into women_ , Abby thinks. Rindy seems to understand, although theirs is an impossibly nuanced situation. It had taken Abby herself a few years to wrap her head around the change in relationship as a result of the Aird divorce; and _was_ she jealous of Therese? Would Carol go to her now, and seek the comfort of the only other individual besides Abby herself who understood the complicated emotions after losing Harge? Abby had always been the soft place to land, but Therese - Therese was the sun, Therese was the stars. Abby would could learn to be content with this change, and yes - she was jealous of Therese, but she was still the moon. That much would never change, at least.

  


  
Rindy leaves in plenty of time to get back to her mother's apartment before dinner without arousing suspicion. She takes a sprig of mint and pops it into her mouth, winking at Abby as she descends the steps and slides into the waiting taxi. Abby watches from the front porch, wrapping a cardigan tightly around her as the evening chill sets in.

  


  
The phone rings an hour later, when Abby has sufficiently recovered her wits after Rindy's departure.

  


  
Two can play at that game, and she needs to think. The phone rings two-dozen times before the caller gives up - Abby counted.

  



	4. 'til the moon is but a silver shell

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Abby recognizes her role in bringing Therese and Carol together. Her guilt is misplaced; Therese reassures her that the loss of Harge cannot be owned by her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, Readers!
> 
> Couple of things:
> 
> 1\. I deleted the two trash fire chapters. I didn't like them, it wasn't good writing, and I don't even have an excuse because I write at work and it wasn't busy in the slightest yesterday. 
> 
> 2\. Your comments and criticisms are appreciated more than you know. This is what makes us better writers, and this is why I love AO3. The community has been nothing but supportive - and support also comes in the form of having to say "You know what, I'm not cool with this", and then figuring out what isn't working and fixing it if it needs to be fixed. Art ain't easy. Writing fanfiction is more challenging than people think, because we are borrowing worlds. Sometimes we don't do those worlds or those people any justice. I tried something, and it didn't work. It made ME feel weird, and I'm the one who wrote it! 
> 
> Onward! Thank you to those of you who left comments, and even those of you no longer with this story. I'm grateful for yesterday's experiences and discussions, and will always engage when you leave comments - especially ones that call me out for being sloppy. You guys are the best - especially the Price of Salt crowd - and I'm a lucky guy to have the readership that I do.

  
Christmas, New York - 1962: The Gerhard residence

  


  
Where Carol is passion personified, Abby has always prided herself on her pragmatism. She can't say that hers is a temperate personality; she is just as fiery and independent as Carol, and it takes coaxing for her temper to flare; nor is she given to brazen sentimentality. She prefers the resoluteness of facts to the uncertainty of feelings, although she is still an emotional person. The difference is that she has never been ruled by those emotions, which made her an excellent candidate to confront Therese in Waterloo all those years ago.

  


  
Now, whenever she thinks about Hargess Aird's body rotting away six feed under in some family plot in Jersey, her stomach lurches. She doesn't know why until after her conversation with Rindy - it is then that she sees plainly what has been bothering her:

  


  
Abigail Gerhard blames herself for what happened to Harge, and it hasn't been hard to tell. She's pulled back from her friendship with Carol, not taking her calls except to trade superfluous pleasantries, and avoiding luncheon invitations and other social engagements she would normally jump to attend.

  


  
Intriguingly, it is not Carol who addresses this, but Therese. She does so in a tasteful tweed pantsuit, edgy and sophisticated - exactly the kind of persona a Times photographer should embrace, and sitting at Abby's kitchen table, she looks for all the world like she is exactly where the fates intended her to be: a rising force, a powerful woman, loving Carol.

  


  
"I would have thought you'd want to be more open now that Harge is gone."

  


  
While powerful and sophisticated, she is still naive. Abby considers this and smiles. "It's not that he's dead, it's that I should have given him an explanation. I should have helped him understand, were such a thing possible. Now I'll never know."

  


  
Therese squints against the high afternoon sun flooding in through the kitchen. "Carol says that he never would have wanted to understand. That all he cared about was that someone else had taken her from him."

  


  
And that might have been true, but the fact remained - and in facts lie Abby's comfort, but it does nothing to help her now - that she should have made an attempt. "I've known her longer than you and Harge combined. Where he had been blinded to who his wife truly was, the bitch of it is that Carol was just as shortsighted. You blindsided her; swept her off her feet. Sense is lost in ecstasy, and pragmatism drowns in a sea of anger. I was that anger, back then, and that anger was directed just as much at Carol simply for not knowing what she was doing. I can't fault her for that. I wish that things had happened differently, is all."

  


  
If Therese doesn't understand the gravity of Abby's admission, she doesn't show it. Abby has underestimated Therese on a few occasions over the years, and she is no longer the young, inexperienced maiden Carol met at Frankeberg's. "At the end of the day, you brought us together. Guilt should not be a part of it."

  


  
"And how do I move beyond that, when all I can think of is the effects it may have on Rindy? Who will guide her?"

  


  
"I heard that you do a fantastic job of that yourself, very recently." Abby feels her face flood red. Rindy was not angry with Abby, and since that is the case, she must harbor no ill-will toward Carol nor Therese.

  


  
Abby leans back, her shoulders suddenly limp after carrying the weight of the world - at least, their small, private universe. "Then I have nothing more to do but wish you both the" her voice breaks as the last two syllables approach the tip of her tongue "very best."

  


  
Therese smiles, and it is a brilliant array Abby knows gives Carol more joy than Harge or any man on earth could have aspired toward. In the moment, Abby cycles through a sense of relief; but Harge's face on her front stoop will always be there, always pitiful and pleading. Whether or not he had begged for understanding or for forgiveness of his own, Abby will never know - and that must be enough, because the dead cannot speak, cannot want. Therese takes a sip of coffee, twisting the spent cigarette in the ash tray between them.

  


  
Abby tells her own story from that moment forward. No longer bound to Carol as a dangerous confidant in a social game of chess, she is willing to accept that perhaps one opportunity had passed her by. She is prepared to claim her youth and protective vigor as the culprits of some kind of ideological neglect; but whether or not Harge deserved to know that Carol didn't love him in the way that nature prescribed for most other people had been a cut above duty. Her duty was first and foremost to herself, above all. Even Carol. Abby knows that she has fulfilled that obligation since the start - driving to Waterloo, drying Carol's tears, making sure that Carol knew that what she was feeling wasn't wrong. Now, she had to convince herself; and that was indeed a taller order.

  


  
There were no hard feelings when Abby began answering her telephone and meeting for cocktails and laughing over languorous lunches again. Carol seemed to know that there had been a crisis of self - and perhaps someday Abby would tell her why. If that day came, and she never minded if it didn't, she would say:

  


  
_Perhaps I could have helped Harge with that. Who better than your best friend, to tell a husband that he is at no fault for his wife's truest convictions?_

__  



	5. how high the moon

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Abby gives Carol the permission no one ever did. A friendship pivots; love prevails.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm BACK! I wasn't able to write at work for about a week, but I tried to get into AO3 on a lark this morning and was able - so here's a fresh new chapter for all my lovely readers. 
> 
> This is the final chapter of this story. I needed Abby to feel closure, and promise that she can have a story apart from Carol and Therese. A brave new world, indeed. I hope you guys enjoy it.

  
The furniture store practically runs itself - Carol is a natural businesswoman, her mere presence a force to be reckoned with so that Abby doesn't have to actually delegate anything, because her best friend manages to read her mind and simply do it. Abby has become used to a certain telepathy, a reciprocated sixth sense which has allowed them to jettison their business to such heights that they are suppliers to the hopelessly wealthy denizens of New York. Rindy has gone to the best parochial schools throughout her education; Abby's home is, even by her own admission, a palace by comparison to where she had lived. Still, money cannot buy some things. Abby has become acutely aware of this, but what she did not anticipate is that the chance to discover those things would come on the wings of loss.

  


  
Carol had been acting strangely, she thought; oddly distant, as she had when she and Therese first met. Abby had successfully managed to mind her own business (although Carol _is_ still her business, as her best friend and longest-standing confidant), but when she caught Carol weeping in her office, there was no leaving it well enough alone.

  


  
"I haven't seen you like this in years." Abby sits down opposite her friend, dabbing her eyes with a tissue clenched in one beautifully-manicured hand. "What is wrong with you?"

  


  
Carol regains her composure, taking out her compact and realigning the smudged mascara she had been sporting almost moments before. "Therese has been given a long-term assignment to San Francisco. One whole fucking year." Abby has always quietly appreciated how her best friend could make vulgar language hopelessly artistic. "We've never been apart this long."

  


  
Abby tenses. Carol's eyes rake over her, appraising her as if she were a chaise in need of reupholstering rather than a woman of flesh and blood. "You know, there are scores of people there like us. Therese is going to be taking pictures for an introspective with - well, with _family_ at the center. It's unprecedented, but it's not for the Times. I tried to dissuade her, but -"

  


  
"Those are her dreams, Carol. She's an artist. A swiftly-tilting planet; and still younger than you, I might add." Carol chuckles.

  


  
The solemnity from her face before returns, but this time Abby knows that it isn't the prospect of Therese's absence that pains her. "Abigail, I am going with her. And it's not just the time we'd be apart, it's the promise of community -"

  


  
Words fade into the background. Abby's mind stretches back over years' worth of Christmas dinners, birthdays, summertime barbecues, beach holidays. She journeys all the way back to her front porch, Harge's whiskey-reddened face pleading with her. She understands, suddenly and without her own consent.

  


  
"I'm not leaving forever, Abby, my goodness. Whatever is the matter with you?"

  


  
"I just realized why I couldn't help Harge."

  


  
"This isn't about him -"

  


  
"No, but this is the only way your leaving will make sense to me. He told me that he loved you. He loved you almost quite literally to death trying to keep you from being this woman - and you would have died too, if only in a metaphorical sense. You are not a woman to be kept, Carol. You never were. Harge didn't understand that to love someone sometimes means that they will become a treasured memory rather than the warmth of a hand -"

  


  
Carol folds her hand on the desk and leans forward, her voice measured and with every syrupy ounce of thick, regal assertion, says "I am not going away forever. This is not the end of our story the way it was with Harge and I. The three of us are eternal, Abby, but you don't have to unpack that guilt anymore. It's over. We - we won, Abigail." When the tears return, it is a mutual affliction. Abby knows that Carol will not return. Perhaps Carol doesn't know this now, but when that glorious salty ocean air makes her hair go flat and Therese's feet meets hot sand and the frigid surf of the Bay, yes, yes - _yes_. They will go on to create the story they deserved.

  


  
And it isn't guilt at all when Abby thinks, for the first time ever, that perhaps she can have her own story now. She lets out a shuddering breath; Carol looks on, eyebrow raised. "What?" she asks, already knowing the answer.

  


  
"You should go. You both waited so long, and this is your chance at leaving behind Harge, and his dreadful parents, the weight of keeping a secret -" she stops, and looks up at Carol. When their eyes meet, there is something raw and beautiful on the tips of their tongues, but too painful to speak. _I do not need your protection any longer_ , and _I cannot give you protection any longer_. Carol nods, finally, breaking the spell.

  


  
"I'll visit" Abby hears herself promise, knowing full well that she will rarely leave the enclave that has become the center of her universe - but was it? The center of her world was sitting before her, the subject of her emotional labor, the emblem for all the things she wishes she could be and have and taste.

  


  
Carol seems to know this; and when she smiles, it is the essence of forgiveness - of the freedom she spoke of with so much authority.

  


  
Abby feels this, and finally buries Harge and his lingering question. She feels this, and embraces her truest friend - and lets her become a warm welcome perhaps twice a year when the shop allows, and her downcast eyes when her date asks "Who was your first?"

  



End file.
